Our Economy; Our Education...an analysis

May 28, 2015 was the day Nigeria made a point to the whole world. That formal
education is not required to function in the most salient of her decision making
strata. A professor was turned down – a ruling power, and one with a
controversial first school leaving certificate and torturous English was ‘sai ‘d’ in.
While you reflect on that, include this tone to the picture; the education sector
remains the singular sector with the worst output, which output is the most
important factor of production of good or service – human capital. While the most
productive sector of the economy – human resource development is still held in
squalor, the basest factor of production that is subject to the first mentioned is
given all the attention and reliance. And it keeps giving the economy heartbreaks
having limits and too ubiquitous unlike human capital that has no limits and is not
replicable in such exactness. Every single person has a completely different service
and good to offer to the public. You can’t have too much of anybody but you can
have too little and when everyone is at his or her best, the society experiences a
collective omega point. This is a level of awareness you experience when you start
viewing education and imbibing of relevant information and skills, from the
economist point of view; bearing in mind that economics is the scientific study of
happiness – utility.
You may not be aware of this, or it may have been one of those subliminal
deceptions to sway attention, that there have been considerations for the delay in
introducing economics of education as a field of study. There is a general
misconception that education is non-productive as an investment, which is why
world financial institutions are not investing in it. There is also the theory that
education is one sector that neither obeys the principles of the competitive
market, nor is delivered under pure economic theory.
In any case, there have also been more reasons that justify that the economics of
education might be that reason, or rationale for education that if and when made
a compulsory course in all levels of education, would culture just the right attitudeto education and the educated. Some of the textbook justifications for the study
of economics of education are; the glaring fact that the cost of education is
continually on the rise and a lot of pressure is being put on the educational
resources available; the existing high number of unemployed graduates in the face
of selective manpower shortage in other sectors of the economy, which makes it
appear that there is a mismatch between the type of education provided and the
type needed by the economy. These are a few of so many other reasons given by
some scholars as justification for making the economics of education a field of
study.
The point being made is that there is a need to re-evaluate our philosophy of
education in the light of its economics and the available innovations in our times. I
have not been convinced that if the country invests a larger percentage of the
economy in human resource development, she is not bound to reap hundred folds
of what is invested. And when education is returned to the hands on, on the job,
continuous unregimented type which is more native to we Africans, the society
will experience an unprecedented level of radical re-orientation and
transformation.
The African education system (I can reliably talk about Igbo educational system)
was more of discovery, induction and commission processes. The society’s needs
determined the kinds of goods and services provided and children were
committed as apprentices to those who produce the good or service destined for
them, according to the dictates of the soothsayers (the parapsychologists) of the
clan.
During his interview, an entrepreneurial icon, Pat Utomi, observed that Nigeria
can be united using the economic tool. He also was able to identify educational
theories as the panacea for economic analysis. The issue at hand is that what
Nigeria needs is the use of economics of education and hands-on interactive
curriculum implementation system as re-orientation tools.